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Liquid labor, precarious lives

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TitleInfo
Title
Liquid labor, precarious lives
SubTitle
an urban ethnography of online work and digital inequality
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Crowell
NamePart (type = given)
Jessica
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1982-
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Jessica Crowell
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author
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Wolfson
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Todd
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Todd Wolfson
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Advisory Committee
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chair
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Napoli
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Philip M
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Philip M Napoli
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Advisory Committee
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internal member
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Schement
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Jorge Reina
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Jorge Reina Schement
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Advisory Committee
Role
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internal member
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Rodino-Colocino
NamePart (type = given)
Michelle
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Michelle Rodino-Colocino
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
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outside member
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name (type = corporate)
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School of Graduate Studies
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school
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Text
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theses
OriginInfo
DateCreated (qualifier = exact)
2017
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2017-10
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2017
Place
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xx
Language
LanguageTerm (authority = ISO639-2b); (type = code)
eng
Abstract (type = abstract)
The primary purpose of this ethnographic study is to better understand the economic lives of participants in Philadelphia’s KEYSPOT project, a network of digital access and skills programs funded by the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Created as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) or “stimulus package,” the BTOP initiative intended to respond to the Great Recession of 2008 by supporting and expanding U.S. broadband infrastructure, particularly in distressed urban and rural communities. Implicit in this primary goal was the understanding that technological development stimulates job sector growth and can mitigate unemployment and underemployment. Yet, what job opportunities were available to the poor and working class urban Americans targeted through these technology programs? How did computer access and digital training practically shape their economic lives? In this dissertation, I argue that there is a disconnect between the policymakers designing broadband programs and the “policytakers” to whom the programs are targeted. Borrowing from Mosco (2004), this disconnect is due in part to the “digital myth” that suggests technology is a cheap, efficient and individual-targeted solution to complex problems such as urban poverty. And whereas these programs endeavored to connect low-income Philadelphians to jobs through a focus on imparting digital access and skills, the types of formal sector jobs available to KEYSPOT job-seekers were part-time, low-skilled, low-wage and did not provide needed benefits like health insurance. Notably, these positions were particularly inflexible for working parents and located in fields like carework, domestic work or the service industries. Given these formidable impediments to locating good jobs in the formal sector outlined above, some struggling parents with digital skills instead pursued flexible, low financial risk opportunities in the informal sector (Bauman, 2000). These informal digital labor activities ranged from offering specific services such as modeling or caricature drawing, to promoting handmade goods or digital goods online. In some cases, urban street economies are merging with digital economies in unique and unanticipated ways. Yet, while some might celebrate these new forms as “entrepreneurial,” I demonstrate that this work is a type of highly precarious, highly exploited digital labor that did not translate to increased economic stability or security. And KEYSPOT participants in both the formal and informal sectors largely continued to rely on social programs because they could not make ends meet. I suggest that that the rise and frequency of these flexible, informalized arrangements more broadly signals a changing relationship between capital and labor in urban economies. I argue that the extant research in the digital labor field has overlooked the ways in which online tools are utilized by the working class and likewise that the dominant digital divide literature has been inattentive to the ways technology practically impacts the economic lives of the urban poor. Thus, rather than “digital labor” or “immaterial labor,” I propose “liquid labor” as a framework for understanding the emergence of these new highly precarious, mutable and flexible online practices. I suggest that this space marks a new terrain of struggle in the fight for technological development and, more importantly, economic equality and opportunity in low-income urban communities struggling in the wake of neoliberal policies of retrenchment.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Communication, Information and Library Studies
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Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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ETD
Identifier
ETD_8493
PhysicalDescription
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electronic resource
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application/pdf
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text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (x, 309 p. : ill.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Digital divide
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Jessica Crowell
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Title
School of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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rucore10001600001
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Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T3474DZS
Genre (authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD doctoral
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Rights

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The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder (type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Crowell
GivenName
Jessica
Role
Copyright Holder
RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2017-10-02 17:39:51
AssociatedEntity
Name
Jessica Crowell
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Affiliation
Rutgers University. School of Graduate Studies
AssociatedObject
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Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
RightsEvent
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2017-10-31
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = end)
2018-10-31
Type
Embargo
Detail
Access to this PDF has been restricted at the author's request. It will be publicly available after October 31st, 2018.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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2017-10-02T16:27:13
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2017-10-02T16:27:13
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